Alisha:
Yes, and apparently there’s a T-rex waiting for me in the backyard.
Meg:
Is that some kind of code?
Alisha:
I wish. I’ll call you later, but right now I have to run a fossil-hunter off our property.
Meg:
WHAT??
Grinning at her friend’s consternation, she pocketed her phone and pushed out the back door. About forty yards behind the house, Mrs.S sat on her trusty motorized steed. Granny stood next to her, the top of her blonde bob a good foot shy of the reflective orange safety flag jutting up out of the back of the seat.
Opposite the women, a backhoe perched motionless on the edge of the crater like a mechanical gargoyle, motor silent. Granny was holdinga whispered conference with Mrs.Snyder, doused in her trademark rose-scented perfume so strong it could penetrate a gas mask.
Alisha slunk up to the women like an uninvited guest at a funeral. She couldn’t help but address them in a hushed tone. “Hi, ladies.”
Mrs.Snyder let out an almighty yelp and revved her engine. The scooter lurched forward toward the edge of the hole. Alisha dived for the kill switch, and Granny wrapped both arms around her friend’s ample waist, the heels of her Wellington boots making furrows in the grass. The scooter skidded to a halt like a clown car dumping its occupants at center stage.
Alisha collapsed onto her knees, panting. “So sorry, Mrs.S!”
“Janet.” Fanning her flushed face, she leveled a beady gaze at Alisha. “If I’ve told you once, I told you a thousand times. Call me Janet.” She adjusted one of her clip-on earrings, blue-veined hand trembling. “‘Mrs.S’ makes me feel about a thousand years old.”
Alisha nodded just to pacify her. The switch would be impossible. Mrs.Snyder was Hawksburg’s answer to Mr.Feeny: a seventh-grade math teacher, religious ed catechist, and, after retirement, a high school substitute teacher. No sense in arguing, though.
She pushed off the freezing ground and turned to Granny. “What’s this I hear about a skeleton in our new swimming pool?”
Pulling the sides of her coat around herself, her grandma said, “I was gonna tell you when you got home, sweetie. But you never get much time to yourself. I didn’t want to interrupt your visit with Simone. And I doubt it’s anything. Janet just said we should be sure.”
Surprise, surprise. Mrs.Snyder had called in the professionals, not Granny.
“I’m sure we’ll have this whole thing resolved today.” Granny patted her arm in reassurance.
Alisha relaxed a bit at her grandma’s touch. The Blake women looked nothing alike. Her grandma was a fine-boned peroxide blondeand fair as winter moonlight. But temperament-wise, they were a match. If Granny wasn’t fussed, everything would be fine. But still ...
“So thereisa bone?”
Granny nodded. “A big one. See for yourself.”
Obediently, Alisha took a step forward to peer down into the pit. The man—and itwasa man, after all—crouched in the mud, squinting against a battered digital camera, and wasn’t wearing the khaki uniform she’d expected.
Instead, a dark-gray zip-up hoodie showed the curve of strong biceps and wide shoulders. He sat on his haunches in worn-in jeans and brown work boots. A cobalt-blue beanie was pulled down over his ears, accentuating the line of a straight, clean-shaven jaw. Definitely not middle aged either.
This was fine. Totally fine. Well,hewas fine, that much was certain.
Keep it together, Alisha.
No worries. She tugged at her cropped leather jacket. She was perfectly capable of sending a fit young scientist packing.
Just then, he rested the camera on his thigh and looked up at them through the snow, his gaze as dazzling as a burst of sunshine after a storm.
Alisha’s knees almost gave way. Up until this moment, she would’ve put weak knees right up there with Bigfoot in the realm of myth. But the man’s electric gray-green eyes short-circuited her nerve endings and left her legs wobbly as Bambi’s.
He pulled his full lips to the side, gaze unfocused, clearly deep in thought. Then he dropped those striking eyes to the ground and stood up, rubbing a hand absently along his chiseled jaw. Her stomach turned itself inside out. It wasn’t every day she encountered a man who looked like her fantasies incarnate. But the biting wind and snowflakes swirling through the air hit her like a bucket of ice water. Not a daydream, then. Which begged the question, What to do now?
